I used to love going out to California. I hauled thousands of loads of produce from Watsonville, Gilroy and many other places. From far west coast to the Bronx, Phili and Boston Market. Your high patrol, who worked the weigh stations and bug check stations acted like their tickets were their Christmas bonuses. When I'd bring in flavoring from the east coast or the midwest, too many times, they forced me to break the seal on my trailer, so they could look in and see the hazmat labels on the container. Which caused a FRIGGIN HUGE problem when I'd arrive at the shippers with a broken seal on a load of food grade chemicals. The DOT would reseal the load before I left. But the numbers on the BOL's didn't match the numbers on the original seal. Pain in the butt, revenue generators.
My biggest "you're a moron" ticket came from being 1 hole too far, on a 53' trailer that had less than 3,000lbs on it. I wasn't even close to being over weight. But because of the stupid length law, I ended up paying about $200 in fines. The DOT officer didn't seem to understand that the trailer isn't any longer, regardless of where the trailer axles were. And that the law was to help keep the heavy loads from weighing down both the truck and/or trailer axles.
Oh, and the Mexican ladies of California. OMG. Prettiest in the world.
PTmowerMech -------
I know exactly where you were ! The company I worked for shipped zillions of lbs of fruit and vegetables from Watsonville and Gilroy.. Gilroy may still be the lettuce capital of the world, I believe..
Watsonville had a lot of great Strawberries and Bartlett Pears we shipped from there.. I'v been there many times.
We employed truckers 24/7 to ship our growers produce all over the US, especially to the Hunts Point, New York Auction, which was the standard to set the prices of all this beautiful produce for the day, every day of the year..
I travelled the entire length of Hwy-99 North and South and then out to the East to see the Packing Houses Cold Storage Facilities where I had installed our own private Network equipment and trained the people how to use it, and then back to Sacramento to the Headquarters to make sure it stayed up and running 24/7..
I remember we used a LOT of Englund Trucks from that company and a few others but not very many..
They would all be Reefers and we would put a "Ryan Instruments" little computer in there, to measure the absolute temperature inside that reefer all the way to the destination..It had to get there at 34 degrees or there was going to be a problem..
Sorry the CHP and others out there were sometimes real idiots...
Once they tried to jack some trucking company because their cabs had tinted windows...
It went all the way up to the Supreme Court who ruled that the State cannot do anything to these trucker's tinted windows, trucks that will interfere with "Interstate Commerce", and they were right...
Years later, I used that exact court ruling to get out of a tinted window ticket I got from some idiot Sheriff trolling the road because he was just a big fat dork...
Hell, I was dressed in a Suit going to a Boy Scout Eagle Scout Awards Ceremony at Church... Big law breaker I was...
I'm glad you liked the hispanic ladies !!! I know, some of them are absolute knockouts !!! And they all know how to cook really well and take care of you, the kids and house..
And forever loyal..